Vagrant Theologian and a Sea of Air Over the Abyss of Oblivion

Maudlin Musings of a Wind-Blown Gnome

That’s the final run
To the New Age
That’s the first step
Beyond the threshold of this world

Mine eyes have seen the blackness at the Edge of the World — not the Glory of the Coming of the Lord. I follow the footsteps of eternity and make footprints of the moment. I have flung myself far and wide on the wings of the Phoenix to make my own way in this world…and I consistently encounter the evidence of my progenitors. Father, Mother as the Defilers were once to you so too is CrIsis now to me; it is a vehicle for the gods on a mission for all mankind. The Edge of the World is no more spectacular than it was in your time. To my bespectacled eyes inky-black periphery roiled with cosmic darkness in a panorama of pulchritude and pain…the paucity of perspective. To see no more — moreso to know no more now. Now. Darkness wreathes the rim, dawn, damning and dim, cradling the Palladium Pendulum in metronomic synchrony. Emptiness in its infancy.

Mother, Father — though your genetic material is no closer to mine than Otto’s to a Phoenix I cannot deny the resplendent connection. Umbral umbilical wanton and indulgent winds serpentine from minstrel-moppet caricatures in the playful shadows of firelight. Fire-flight. Gentrified heat that coaxes a cauldron’s sludge from the mutton masses and coalesces into the blood of heroes. This is our shared bond. This is commonality. As you have with me. As the Defilers had with you. As CrIsis has with Tyvernos. As Jidian Kulder has with Xar Xar. As Malkin has with Elanu. As the Legion of Northmoor has with CrIsis and the Defilers, both. We are blood and kin and humble brethren in a fight that never ends.

Against evil or chaos — what is goodness? What is light? What is the capacity for Darkness that forebodes and glooms and auspiciously condemns in omens and signs? It sighs…

The purest of heart. The goodness of a goddess — this is the greatest good. But, I ask in my servile severity, what great evils is a heart of goodness capable of? A heart that knows only evil and pain and the wickedness of ages is at most an equal and opposite reaction. This Black Heart — what would one tiny insignificant act of kindness mean? The deevils are vile. The vilest of them is their lord and master, Sahtalus. His name was recently invoked to me in the trials for the games. This being intrigues me. Sahtalus. Has he no capacity for goodness? Has he no capacity for empathy? For kindness? The devil, they say, has an ordinary way. But I am forced to wonder as I wander: What would one singular, miniscule, infinitesimal act of benevolence mean? What would it cost him? Such a thing must be far greater than that very same act originating in the heart of Love itself. And that heart — Unconditional Love and Eternal Fortitude in Loyalty — what is the singular act of selfishness or evil or…callous disregard in the face of eons of Benevolence and Philanthropy?

We are, none of us, pure, and each is in constant motion and flux. We are given perspective to find examples and adjust our fulcrum. Good and Evil, Chaos and Order, they are but perspectives of the fulcrum. I find myself planted squarely on the side of my goddess and aligned with her goals, ambitions, needs, desires, and priorities. I know only as much as I need to and I follow. I have accepted this…for now. Time may change a man’s heart in the same ways both Love and Hatred change a man’s perspective.

I ask you, as your adopted son — not blood — but kindred and loved in a reciprocity more sacred than the vow between family: What Atrocity are committed for our goals? What of the goals of a goddess? They say the end justifies the means but I think that is fearful. The virtue of ethics is a luxury that is only permitted by the sins of the self. Look deeper. I am looking so much deeper, Mother, Father, and all I can find is a rationale of Consequentialism and the interrogative justification of Pragmatism. I…get…my…hands…dirty. Would the Gods of Light ask of us what they would not do themselves? I don’t think so. Such was never my doubt. I am as faithful today as ever but I cannot deny the comfort I feel from taking a moral pejorative in denouncing my enemies and reveling in my righteous cause. I…get…my…hands…dirty. The Agent, his minions, do they know their hands are dirty? Do they believe them clean? Does it matter? Does the Darkness and the Agent and the minions of Taut do the same? How can we know without straddling that perspicacious line and diminishing our determination? Our resolve? How can we allow even the faintest hint of empathy to riddle the armor and crack the foundation of everything we espouse? To what ends must we go? To what end?

Morality in Mortality.
…in Immortality.

Written by Tyvernos on…an unknown date, in the 69th year of the Wolfen Empire.